If you don't let it in, you don't have to get it out: Thought preemption as a method to control unwanted thoughts.
If you don't let it in, you don't have to get it out: Thought preemption as a method to control unwanted thoughts.
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如果你不让它进来，你不必把它弄出来：思想抢占作为控制不想要的思想的方法。
DOI：
10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010285
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发表时间：
2022-07
影响因子：
4.3
通讯作者：
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
为了实现目标，人们必须主动预防干扰，并在干扰发生时作出反应。虽然大多数研究关注的是人们如何处理外部干扰，但在这里，我们研究了在处理不想要的想法时，主动控制和反应控制的使用。为了检验这个问题，我们要求人们对几个重复的提示词中的每一个产生联想，同时禁止重复联想。在不必要的重复联想发生后，被动地拒绝和替换它们需要更慢的反应时间。相反，主动控制需要压缩搜索空间，从而加快响应时间。为了进一步深入了解不同潜在的主动思维控制机制，我们使用一种新颖的、基于假设的、易于处理的计算模型来增强对原始反应时间的分析，该模型描述了人们如何连续取样联想。我们的研究结果表明，人们主要是在不想要的想法出现后才做出反应。然而，我们发现了两种潜在的主动控制机制的证据：一种允许人们减轻重复思想的情景强化，另一种有助于避免重复思想的循环。探索性分析显示了模型参数与自我报告的个体差异在日常生活中控制不良想法之间的关系。研究结果表明，新的任务和模型可以促进我们对人们如何控制自己的思想和记忆的理解，并有助于未来对不同精神状况下产生不良思想的机制的研究。最后，我们讨论了联想思维和各种控制过程对语义流畅性、决策和创造力的影响。试着停止想不想要的，经常重复的想法是一种熟悉的经历。然而，意识到这样的尝试意味着思想已经达到了意识。我们能否像避免采取不想要的行动一样，预先阻止不想要的想法出现在脑海中？我们通过一个自由联想任务来检验这个问题，在这个任务中，人们被指示避免重复联想。我们表明，为了完成这项任务，人们在已经达到意识之后，主要是拒绝和替换不需要的联想。然而，这种拒绝可以有效地确保同样不想要的联想不会无休止地出现在脑海中。此外，我们发现人们能够控制当他们重复时联想暂时增强的程度。这些能力的个体差异可以解释一些人在不想要的和侵入性的想法中遇到的困难。“一盎司的预防胜过十分的治疗。”本杰明•富兰克林
To attain goals, people must proactively prevent interferences and react to interferences once they occur. Whereas most research focuses on how people deal with external interferences, here we investigate the use of proactive and reactive control in dealing with unwanted thoughts. To examine this question, we asked people to generate an association to each of several repeating cue words, while forbidding the repetition of associations. Reactively rejecting and replacing unwanted repeated associations after they occur entails slower response times. Conversely, proactive control entails constricting the search space and thus faster response times. To gain further insight into different potential proactive thought control mechanisms, we augmented the analysis of raw response times with a novel, hypothesis-based, tractable computational model describing how people serially sample associations. Our results indicate that people primarily react to unwanted thoughts after they occur. Yet, we found evidence for two latent proactive control mechanisms: one that allows people to mitigate the episodic strengthening of repeated thoughts, and another that helps avoid looping in a repetitive thought. Exploratory analysis showed a relationship between model parameters and self-reported individual differences in the control over unwanted thoughts in daily life. The findings indicate the novel task and model can advance our understanding of how people can and cannot control their thoughts and memories, and benefit future research on the mechanisms responsible for unwanted thought in different psychiatric conditions. Finally, we discuss implications concerning the involvement of associative thinking and various control processes in semantic fluency, decision-making and creativity. Trying to stop thinking unwanted, often repetitive thoughts is a familiar experience. However, being aware of such attempts implies that the thought has already reached consciousness. Can we preempt an unwanted thought from coming to mind, similarly to how we can avoid taking an unwanted action? We examined this question using a free association task where people were instructed to avoid repeating associations. We show that to meet the task, people principally reject and replace unwanted associations after they have already reached consciousness. This rejection, however, is effective at ensuring that the same unwanted associations do not continue to come to mind endlessly. Furthermore, we found that people are able to control the extent to which associations become temporarily stronger when they repeat. Individual differences in these abilities could explain the difficulties that some individuals experience with unwanted and intrusive thoughts. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Benjamin Franklin
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影响因子：
3.6
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